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Nectarine Compote
Peel and stone some nectarines, cut them in halves and put them in a saucepan with some syrup at the small thread degree, and cook them until quite tender. When cold they should be served in a compote dish and the syrup poured over. A little spinach green added to the syrup improves the effect.
A plain poached-fruit compote whose only technical points are the sugar syrup and the restraint needed to keep the halves whole.
- "Small thread degree"An old sugar-boiling stage near the light end of the series, usually given as somewhere around 215-220F, when the syrup just spins a short thread off the spoon. A light syrup is what is wanted here; a heavy candy syrup will shrink and toughen the fruit.
- Cook, do not boilCook gently -- hold the syrup at a bare simmer with the fruit barely moving. Hard boiling will break the halves up before they are tender.
- Timing"Until quite tender" means 5-10 minutes for ripe fruit, up to 15 for firm. Test with a skewer at the thickest point; it should meet no resistance but the half should still hold its shape.
- PeelingRipe nectarines do not peel as cleanly as peaches. Score the skin, drop them in boiling water for 30-45 seconds, then into ice water, and the skin slips off. Underripe fruit is easier to peel with a knife.
- Spinach greenBefore commercial food dye, kitchens made green coloring by pounding raw spinach, pressing out the juice, and heating it gently until the green solids coagulated, then draining them off in a cloth. It is a decorative touch only, and modern cooks generally skip it; a spoonful of the poaching syrup reduced with a strip of lemon peel does more for the flavor.
- CoolingLet the fruit cool in its own syrup rather than lifting it out hot, or it will dry at the cut surfaces. Chilled overnight, the halves absorb the syrup and firm up.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantity; six nectarines, halved, will roughly fill a compote dish and serve four or so. Serve cold with the syrup spooned over, and cream, a plain sponge finger, or a spoonful of whipped cream alongside.
The compote in the French sense means fruit cooked whole or in halves in sugar syrup and served in its own liquid, distinct from a jam or a marmalade because the fruit keeps its shape and the sugar stays low enough that the dish will not keep. Oscar Tschirky's book was published in 1896, out of the Waldorf's kitchens, at a moment when the hotel's dessert service drew on the French classical repertoire, and it carries a run of similar compotes of other fruits. The direction to tint the syrup with spinach green reflects a kitchen habit of the period of keeping a small range of vegetable colorings on hand -- spinach for green, cochineal for red, saffron or egg yolk for yellow -- at a time when coal-tar dyes were available but not yet standardized or widely trusted.